Description

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In The Art of Touch: Prose and Poetry from the Pandemic and Beyond, the unique voices of thirty-nine of some of the most creative thinkers of our times have been brought together to consider the profound impact of one of our five main senses: touch.

Psychologists, healers, massage therapists, academics, creative writers, and others reflect on or tell personal stories about what it means to be able to touch or experience touch, or to have to go without it--as so many did and still do because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They explore how transmissions such as texting may impede opportunities for touch, while those like Zoom may make it possible for people who otherwise might be left behind to stay "in touch." From the experience of touching beloved animals to the life-changing ways in which books and performances can touch us, virtually all aspects of touch are acknowledged in these pages.

About the Author

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Joan Schweighardt (Editor) JOAN SCHWEIGHARDT is the author of The Rivers Trilogy (Before We Died, Gifts for the Dead, and River Aria), The Last Wife of Attila the Hun, Under the Blue Moon, and other fiction and nonfiction titles. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Faye Rapoport DesPres (Editor) FAYE RAPOPORT DESPRES is the author of five books, including the memoir-in-essays Message From a Blue Jay, the three children's books in the Stray Cat Stories children's book series, and the flash fiction/micro-fiction collection Soul to Soul: Tiny Stories of Hope and Resilience. She is a graduate of the Solstice MFA program in creative writing, and her personal essays, fiction, and poetry have been published in a variety of literary journals. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.